East Coast Face vs West Coast Face and The 'Instagram Face' Trend
Is there a difference in the way people want to look? New York vs Los Angeles Plastic Surgery Trends and the "Park Avenue Face"
Hi everyone! Helen here, thanks for taking the time to read this!
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Let the record show that this is the very first time ever I’ve interrupted reading a book midway through, in this case The Park Avenue Face (Penguin, 2019) by facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Andrew Jacono to write about it immediately, because the content is simply that wild.
First off: I don't have anything against plastic surgery. One of my favorite doctors ever is plastic surgeon Dr. Joan Lipa of Sunnybrook hospital who did a 9 hour DIEP flap reconstruction on me (that’s where they take a pouch from your tummy and turn it into a breast instead of using a silicone implant) and oversaw my husband’s Stage III melanoma excision five years before that. Plastic surgeons not only change lives, they restore dignity and even save lives (like in the case of my husband’s melanoma), which I think gets overlooked sometimes. Plastic surgery goes far beyond looking younger.
However while I have utmost respect for Dr. Jacono, my eyes splayed open like that scene from A Clockwork Orange when I read about his theory of faces. There is such a thing as East Coast Face and West Coast Face, he says. For my overseas readers, we are basically talking about American coastal cities of Los Angeles versus Manhattan. They’re drastically different facial aesthetics, and Dr. Jacono practices facial surgery favoring the East Coast Face method, in case you were wondering.
As a Canadian who got married in Manhattan and often vacations in Los Angeles, I feel somewhat qualified to talk broadly about some of the hair and fashion differences as a casual observer, not an expert, between the women of my demographic aged 30 to 60 in each city.
My New York observations
-The majority of women are brunettes, sporting primarily shoulder length hair
-The dress code is all over the place, personal expression is high
-Elegant seems to be the vibe, coexisting with quirky and street style
-Bodies seem to have more diversity
-Money and street smarts are the currency of note
My Los Angeles observations
-There are lots of blondes with long hair, usually past the shoulders, representing all ages
-The dress code seems either way more casual than NYC (boyfriend jeans, tanks) or way more revealing and designer logo-y
-Sexy seems to be the vibe, coexisting with casual and athleisure
-Very thin and/or visibly fit is still the standard (the Selling Sunset cast, for example)
-Money and youth are the currencies of note
Los Angeles, New York, and “Two Rocks in Your Socks”
Women in both places are lovely, I might add. Angelenos are exceptionally friendly, warm and easy to smile. I don’t know if it’s because so many people come to L.A. from away, but they also seem genuinely welcoming. New Yorkers, while gruffer, will stop in their tracks to help you if you look lost. They will also not hesistate to put you in your place if you’re acting the fool, a trait I equally admire.
There was a viral video going around where some dude, thinking he was a badass, was loudly rattling off some lame threats on an NYC subway train. A nonplussed middle-aged commuter mom type clapped back “You better shut your mouth or we’ll put you in the river with two rocks in your socks.” Whenever I need a laugh I replay this video in my head because the fed-up-mom specificity of threatening to drown a mouthy thug with a rock in each of his socks thus sinking him to the bottom of the East River never fails to stir my delight.
Anyway, there is a cultural difference obvious to me, an outsider, in terms of the apparel and hair in New York versus L.A. One thing I never thought about though, is the face and that’s where Dr. Jacono comes in.
West Coast Face Beauty Style
“The West Coast is big, bold, brazen…it’s about the cult of youth. It’s hard to miss, and that’s the point!” says Dr. Jacono.
“Features are overtly sexualized: big puffy lips, smooth rounded cheeks, pinched turned-up noses, frozen foreheads, arched brows, wide open eyes.”
According to Dr. Jacono, this is driven by Hollywood ideals. Understandably, high definition video means we can see every pore and wrinkle, placing stars in what he calls “a nearly impossible position.”
By the way, this is not the first time this specific look has been noted. Back in 2019 Jia Tolentino wrote a now-infamous piece called “The Age of the Instagram Face” in which she noted:
“This past summer, I booked a plane ticket to Los Angeles with the hope of investigating what seems likely to be one of the oddest legacies of our rapidly expiring decade: the gradual emergence, among professionally beautiful women, of a single, cyborgian face. It’s a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips.
The face is distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic—it suggests a National Geographic composite illustrating what Americans will look like in 2050, if every American of the future were to be a direct descendant of Kim Kardashian West, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner (who looks exactly like Emily Ratajkowski). “It’s like a sexy . . . baby . . . tiger,” Cara Craig, a high-end New York colorist, observed to me recently.”
East Coast Face Beauty Style
By contrast, there is a different approach on the East Coast, namely New York City, specifically, Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. Here’s what Dr. Jacono has to say about the East Coast beauty standards:
“East Coast style idolizes professional success. Obvious and distracting signs of aging, such as sagging necks, wrinkled cheeks, etc., he says, can negatively impact how one projects traits like talent, ambition and ability. (Personally, I would add wealth to that as well). “An obviously fake, surgically enhanced face is also likely to make a bad impression,” he writes.
Above all, those who want an east coast face want to look natural, like themselves, and they want to recreate their previous personal signature, with no feature standing out, he says.
So I thought about this, and the woman whose refreshed face I really think embodies the East Coast Face beauty style is Sonja Morgan from the Real Housewives of New York. I think speculating on who’s had plastic surgery is cruel, but Morgan’s admitted to a facelift on a reunion episode of RHONY around the time when she was wearing her hair in a sharp blond bob like Ellen Barkin. Thus I think commenting on her appearance and facelift is fine: She looks absolutely amazing!
Then I thought: I bet Dr. Jacono did Morgan’s face. So I Googled and guess what. He did! You can read about it on his office website.
So there you have it, my friends. My intent is not to say one is better than the other (but holy smokes, I’d kill to look like Sonja Morgan in my mid-50s. I love this natural look) but rather to share the ins and outs of these two coastal aesthetics, as posited by Dr. Jacono. Oh, and also an excuse to write about Two Rocks in Your Socks Mom.
I hope you enjoyed reading this!
Warmly,
Helen